


Anyway, Here's Wagonwheel

by evol_love



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Non-Graphic Violence, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 16:37:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12963720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evol_love/pseuds/evol_love
Summary: "PE is a fucking homophobic invention."OR: Connor Murphy's senior year would be hard enough without him having to make up the fucking gym class credit he couldn't complete freshman year. Give the poor kid a break.





	Anyway, Here's Wagonwheel

**Author's Note:**

> Jackson Wayne, the guy Connor likes in this fic, is the collective OC of myself, phonecallfromgod, and euphrasiefauchelevent. He appears in many of our fics and is someone we created together, and we ask that you ask us first before using him in your own works. Thanks! If you like him (and I hope you do, because I adore him), then you're in luck! I've got about three other fics featuring him coming out soon!
> 
> I do want to warn for some homophobia and violence in this fic. The violence isn't particularly explicit, the homophobia is pretty implicit (no slurs or anything), but you know you and what will affect you best. If you want a more detailed content warning, I've included some spoiler-y warnings in the end notes.

PE is a fucking homophobic invention. Connor’s quite sure gym class was invented specifically to make him feel bad, and so the guys in his grade can find new and creative things to bash his head in with. And as if that weren't enough, he’s expected to change in and out of gym clothes every day in a disgusting locker room alongside some of the least pleasant people Connor’s ever had to be around. 

Really, Connor is getting dressed as quickly and as inconspicuously as possible, and he wishes the group of guys down the row of lockers would stop whooping and hollering. They keep yelling to each other and smacking each other around and Connor just doesn’t understand straight boys at all. One of them shouts abruptly, and Connor makes the absolutely deadly mistake of glancing over involuntarily. 

“Hey, the fuck you looking at, freak?” the guy who had shouted demands immediately. Immediately, like, god, Connor’s eyes had wandered for half a second and it certainly wasn’t to admire this gross boy. “Hey.” This guy really isn’t dropping this and Connor really needs to go. He casts a pained glance at the office where their gym teacher is, hoping for a bailout, but the blinds are drawn and he can hear the plucky banjo that indicates he’s once again rocking out to country music and ignoring his students. The guy cannot let “Wagonwheel” go. 

Connor is quickly gathering up his things, preparing to sprint off in a way that has no dignity but which might keep him alive, but then the guy is blocking him, hand pressing Connor’s gym locker closed and glaring at him. Connor’s pretty tall, which he knows because he’s had to deal with being gangly and weird and totally unsubtle for years, but this guy isn’t short. Connor might have a slight height advantage, but _he’s_ got the advantage of being pissed off and holding more social weight and having about six guys backing him. 

This can’t possibly end well for him.

“I wasn’t looking at shit and you know it,” Connor tries. He just laughs.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he says, and just as Darius Rucker makes it to the chorus back in the coach’s office, the guy’s fist connects with Connor’s face.

_Rock me mama like a wagonwheel_

_Rock me mama any way you feel_

_Hey, mama rock me_

“Fuck, what the fuck,” Connor spits, stumbling back against the row of lockers and trying to catalogue all the places where pain is bursting. He thinks his nose might be broken. It feels all wrong, and Connor’s going to be real pissed if this guy managed to fuck him up that bad with one punch. His blood is boiling. 

“Self defense,” the guy says, and he has the audacity to chuckle, like this is all a fun game, like it ultimately means _nothing_ to him. “Gotta protect myself from you somehow, right?” A few of this shithead’s friends are laughing too, giving him encouragements Connor can’t even hear because his ears have begun ringing, his fists have begun clenching, and before he even knows it he’s swung back at the guy. 

He barely even touches him the first time, which means the reaction he gets is half shock and half delighted, mocking laughter, but he throws another punch and this one lands squarely. Connor’s gotten pretty fucking good at hitting back by now. 

“Jesus, get away from me,” the guy says, and Connor notes the slight edge of fear in his voice even as he hits him again, again, and suddenly he feels nothing but white hot fucking rage and every time he blinks his eyelids bloom bright red and the country music is still twanging _rock me mama like the wind and the rain_ from the office nearby and Connor’s not sure if the heat on his face is blood or tears, and he thinks it might be both and and and and and 

“He’s gonna kill him holy shit.”

“Oh my god he’s killing him.”

“Call the fucking police!” 

Connor’s brain has completely shorted and he punches the guy again. He’s on the ground at this point, Connor straddling his chest as he hits him and hits him with everything he has left to give. He’s not sure if he’s yelling, if he’s sobbing, if he’s even making a sound anymore, all he knows is the feeling of his knuckles connecting with skin, with cartilage, with bone. 

“HEY,” a voice cuts through the white noise at last. Their gym teacher had finally decided to get involved. He grabs Connor under his arms and hauls him off the guy who started this in the fucking first place. Connor’s panting, gasping for shaky breaths, and yeah he’s definitely crying, fuck. He’s not sure whose blood it is he wipes off his cheek along with his tears, even less so when he glances around and sees he must have hit at least one other guy, maybe two. They must have tried to stop Connor first; he didn't even notice. “What the hell happened here?”

“Connor Murphy _attacked me_ is what happened, Coach, I don’t even know what I did to him,” the guy currently bleeding on the ground says. Connor wants to grind his fucking heel into his nose, hear it crack. He immediately hates himself just for the thought. 

“He hit me first,” Connor protests, knowing full well he shouldn’t even bother. The coach hates his guts and thinks he causes nothing but trouble. He always sees the aftermath of everyone deciding how to torment Connor this week and never has the time to hear what Connor himself has to say. “He was _looking_ to start shit, he wanted me to-”

“Enough. And watch your language,” the gym teacher adds, and that’s that. 

The room goes silent save for the strains of _and I gotta get a move on before the sun, I hear my baby callin' my name and I know that she's the only one..._

“Cameron, Connor, I’m taking you two down to the office.” He turns to address the other guys in the locker room, who’ve all gathered around at this point, because of course Connor has to be a spectacle, too. “You boys behave yourselves, understood?” 

“Yeah coach,” a few of them mumble unevenly, looking shell-shocked. It’s a very hollow comfort to know he can still scare the shit out of people after all this time. 

_And if I die in Raleigh_

_  
_

_At least I will die free._

_\-----_

His mom is already crying when she comes to pick Connor up, her too-large designer purse thrown over her shoulder, her hair perfectly in place. Connor has no clue how someone so foreign to everything he is could be responsible for him existing. 

“Oh Connor,” she breathes, an arm outstretched like she wants to inspect his injury. “What happened?”

Connor just shrugs. What’s the point. He’s cooled down from his anger and now he’s just sad. Tired. He’d gotten two weeks suspension and the guy - Cameron, apparently - hadn’t gotten anything but a stern warning and a vague threat of Consequences if an incident like this arose in the future. Connor stopped expecting any kind of justice a long time ago. 

She collects herself at last, wiping away a few tears with the back of her hand. “Come on, let’s go get your nose looked at. Does it still hurt?”

“Like a bitch,” he tells her, and god he sounds nasal. He’s actually feeling a bit grateful for the suspension if it means no one has to hear him like this. His mom tuts a bit at his word choice but shakes her head and urges him to get up and leave with her. He stares out the window the whole ride to the doctor, quiet even though she clearly wants nothing more than for him to confide in her. There’s nothing to say. 

\-----

A week into his exile and his nose has mostly healed. It was just a fracture, apparently, not a full break. Larry had been annoyed about the whole medical ordeal, and downright angry about Connor being suspended. He’s just glad that Larry has to go to work every day and he’s left at home with his mom. She’s being horribly nice about the whole thing, telling him she’s got half a mind to march down to the school and cause a ruckus as they fold laundry together in the living room, wincing sympathetically when he twinges in pain trying to chew, kissing his forehead when she walks past him lying around reading. Frankly, getting suspended from school might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He doesn’t have to deal with his classmates, Zoe brings home his work so he can stay caught up, and his mom feels so bad about the whole thing that she’s letting him cheat on the family Atkins diet plan. He tags along on her trips to Target and Whole Foods, where she chatters about some article she read on this superfood or that cleaning hack and unsubtly tries to get him to talk to her about What Happened and His Feelings. He doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t mind listening to her talk. He tosses some granola and peanut butter and sea salt caramels into his mom’s basket when she isn't paying attention. When they get to the register and she finds herself pulling them out of the basket, Connor actually laughs at the annoyed, incredulous look she shoots him. She seems to brighten up at that, and the afternoon is spent munching on dark chocolate together. 

His relatively calm world comes crashing down, like he knew it eventually would, a few days before he’s supposed to go back to school. He’s lying on the sofa trying to focus on his history homework, but the words are all blurring together and he can’t concentrate at all. 

“Hey.” 

He looks up from his textbook to find Zoe standing a few feet away, looking unsure. 

“Hey.”

She won’t meet his eyes, casting about for something else to look at. 

“How’s the homework?” she asks, gesturing to the books and folders spread out on the table before him. “Sorry there’s so much. I keep telling your teachers it’s not fair to give you all that when you can’t be in class to learn it in the first place.”

Oh. Connor’s heart clenches weirdly, chest tight and eyes inexplicably feeling a bit misty. It’s just. It’s just that he wouldn’t have ever expected Zoe to stick up for him like that. 

“Thanks,” he says after a moment. Neither of them seems to know how to proceed. 

“Look, I thought- I just thought you might want to know what they’re saying at school before you have to go back and find out for yourself. I thought it might be better coming from me?” Zoe looks nervous now. 

Suddenly Connor would very much like for Zoe to leave. 

“Fine,” he chokes out, throat closing up. “Just tell me.” Zoe looks close to tears, and Connor fucking hates this. “Just _tell me_ , Zoe,” he snaps. 

“Uh, Cameron is telling everyone that...that you, you know.” Connor has a pretty good idea. “That you were like. That you tried to like, I don’t know, make a move on him or something, which is obviously bullshit, I know that of course and so do a lot of people.” She cuts herself off, biting her lip and looking fucking wrecked. Connor feels about the same. “But yeah. He said that like you attacked him when he rejected you or _something._ So. Yeah. I’m sorry.” She looks it, she really does. “I've fought a lot of people this week, believe me.”

“You- you don’t need to do that,” he says, shocked. Why does Zoe even care? Surely she’s just making things harder for herself. 

“Of course I do,” Zoe says. She looks at him a moment like she wants to say something, like she wants to _ask_ something, and...oh no. 

“Just say it,” Connor says. He flops down on the couch completely, burying his face in one of the throw pillows his mom had artfully placed there. 

There’s a long stretch of silence, and then Zoe hedges, “It’s not a _problem,_ you know, I don’t care, I don’t care at all.”

So she knows, then, doesn’t even have to ask. 

“Can we not talk about this? Please?” He doesn’t feel above begging at this point. It’s just. He _doesn’t_ talk about this. No one else is allowed to have this part of him. They already want to treat him like shit about everything else they can’t take this too.

“Okay.” Zoe sounds almost disappointed, which Connor cannot fathom. “Well, if you ever want to talk, just. Let me know, okay? Please?”

“Sure,” he grits out. His skin feels far too hot.

After a moment, soft footsteps fade off into the kitchen and Connor tentatively emerges from where he’s buried his face in the cushions like some anxious gay ostrich. 

Shit. So. He hadn’t expected his return to school to be particularly triumphant or anything, but now it seems like it’s going to be even worse than anticipated. Honestly? That’s just impressive. 

Zoe knowing throws him for a loop, but honestly he can't say he’s _that_ surprised. He’s never said anything - can’t say anything - but like. If you know Connor it isn’t all that shocking. And Zoe knows him. Seems she knows him even better than he’d thought. 

\-----

He hasn’t missed school one bit, but god has he missed the one extracurricular he actually participates in, which he’d been unable to do with a fractured nose. But now he’s healed and the doctor has okayed him to go back into tap class, thank fuck. Just tying his shoes on makes Connor feel more like a real person than he has the past few weeks. 

“Oh, you’re alive, thank god! Thought maybe you fled the country or something.” 

Connor grins; he can’t help it. He’s missed this too. 

“Hey,” he laughs, looking up to see Jackson standing in front of him, bag slung over his shoulder and a bright smile on his face. “No, I’m still kicking.”

“I’m glad. I missed you,” he tells Connor, and he says it in a joking tone, but there’s just _enough_ seriousness in his eyes that Connor’s heart skips a beat. 

“Missed you, uh, missed you too.” Things have gotten kind of? Weird between them since Connor found out Jackson was not actually the very nice but very unattainable straight boy Connor thought he was (a very embarrassing ordeal all around). Not bad weird, but. Weird. Connor can never catch his breath around him. 

“I’m sure you’ll still kick all of our asses even though you’re like three classes behind on choreography,” Jackson teases, and Connor rolls his eyes, pulling the hair tie in his hand back and shooting it at Jackson’s chest instead of putting his hair up. “Hey! That was a compliment!” Jackson fires the hair tie back anyway, missing Connor by several inches.

“Aren’t _you_ the athlete here?” Connor says primly, and Jackson scoffs, mock-offended. 

“Fine, just for that, I’m going to absolutely crush every fucking across the floor combination today and you’re going to feel so silly.” 

Only Jackson could make their tap class warm ups competitive.

“You’re on.”

\-----

They never actually established any sort of point system of way of determining a winner, but Connor decided to claim the crown and Jackson lets him, which is nice. 

“Can I hitch a ride?” Connor asks as he tugs his hair out of its bun, shaking his head to toss a few strands out of his eyes. 

“Wow, first day back and already using me for my car,” Jackson says, but there’s no bite. The _of course_ is implicit. 

“Of course. Why else would I be talking to you here?” Connor sticks his tongue out at Jackson to make sure he knows Connor’s only kidding, but he’s startled when he sees the way Jackson’s looking at him. He can’t place it. He can’t understand what that expression, what the wistfulness in Jackson’s eyes is trying to tell him. 

Jackson shakes his head after a second, appearing to collect himself. “Right, yeah. Yeah, obviously.” The moment is broken but things still feel so heightened that Connor is jumpy. He’s itching for something right down to his fingers. 

They walk out of the dance studio together, quiet for once, but it’s okay. The sun is setting and the sky looks absolutely gorgeous. Connor’s head is tilted up, fixed on the bright streaks of colors and clouds, and doesn’t even notice Jackson’s opened the passenger side door for him until he literally runs into him. 

“Oof- ah shit, sorry.”

“Woooow. I’m officially declaring chivalry dead, and you killed it, Connor Murphy.” Jackson has a hand dramatically clasped to where Connor had wounded him. Connor rolls his eyes, laughing. 

“You’re such a dork.” 

They’re just. They’re just standing in the parking lot next to Jackson’s car _looking_ at each other, what the hell does that mean, and that expression from before that had given Connor such pause has returned, except now there’s a warmth in it that Connor has no fucking clue how to deal with. 

“We should-”

“Can I-” Jackson blurts out, then stops himself immediately. 

“Go ahead,” Connor says, gesturing for him to continue. 

“No, it’s fine. It was, it was stupid.” He sweeps his arm forward to usher Connor to the passenger seat, and Connor takes the hint, climbing into the car. Conversation over, then. 

The ride home is fun all the same, even with whatever’s going on with Jackson. Even after weeks apart, things just seem to fall back in place. Connor asks him about the latest drama with Avery and Avery, the horrifically unfortunately named couple at Jackson’s school comprised of a member on Jackson's hockey team and a girl on the varsity tennis team (“dating someone with the same name is appropriating gay culture” Connor had told Jackson once). Apparently they’re currently fighting over some dumb thing, which is pretty much par for the course for the Averys. Connor is fascinated by them. They’re like some wild case study. 

“So. You don’t have to answer this,” Jackson says.

“Always a fun way to start a conversation,” Connor cuts in. When Jackson goes silent he adds, “it’s fine, go for it.”

“I was just wondering where you’ve been the last couple of weeks? I know it’s none of my business or anything but I just. I just want to know you’re okay.” 

Well. 

“Oh, um.” Connor racks his brain for some kind of excuse, or at least for some more palatable version of the truth, something easy to digest. 

Of course, as he zones out, that’s when he realizes what song just came on the radio. 

_Heading down south to the land of the pines I'm thumbing my way into North Caroline_

Connor feels frozen. Absolutely petrified. He can’t move, he can’t fucking make himself move, but he’s shaking all over, and Jackson has to notice, will notice, he's trembling so much. His nose twinges and he wonders if it wasn’t a clean break after all, if the fracture hasn’t healed correctly. Wonders if it's actually healed at all. 

His vision is actually getting spotty, holy shit, he is really out here having a panic attack in a car with a boy he - with _Jackson, shit shit shit shit shit._

“Connor, what’s wrong?” Jackson’s voice is sharp, urgent, to the point, and it's enough to bring Connor to the surface long enough for him to gasp out, “pull over, pull over, pull over right now.”

Jackson does as Connor asks, and Connor practically tumbles out of the passenger door, puking on the side of the road just as the chorus picks up. 

“Shit, fuck, Connor, what do you need?” 

“Turn it off,” Connor begs as Darius croons _any way you feel, hey, mama rock me. “_ Please _.”_

The radio goes silent and Connor feels limp with relief, and then he’s suddenly sobbing right there on the side of the road. Right there in front of Jackson. 

“Connor,” Jackson’s voice cracks. “Connor how can I help you?” 

Connor’s only answer is to just keep bawling, cursing how fucking good at hydrating on dance class nights he is. There are so many tears left in him.

“Hey.” Jackson’s voice is so gentle, and his hands on Connor’s back are so gentle, and when did he get out of the car too? “It’s just me. I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” Connor just nods. He cant fucking speak, can barely process Jackson speaking to him. “Do you think you can get back in the car, or do you want me to help?” Connor wouldn’t mind having Jackson’s hands on him again, and not even in an I’m-super-in-love-with-you-and-definitely-just-blew-any-shot-I-ever-had-with-you-so-I’ll-take-what-I-can-get kind of way. Jackson’s hands on his back feel so right, so calming. Grounding, that’s what his mom would call it. Jackson grounds him. 

At the same time though, the idea of needing Jackson’s help to get into his car is humiliating, so. 

“I’m fine,” Connor says, and hates the waver in his voice, the blatant way he sounds like he’s crying. 

The silence between them is a valley, a canyon, a fucking crater now as they sit in Jackson’s car. He hasn’t even started it yet. Instead, he sits, and waits. 

“What’s wrong Connor?” Connor laughs bitterly. Everything’s wrong, _everything's wrong._

 _“_ Nothing.” 

“Connor.” Jackson goes quiet, clearly waiting for something. “You don’t, like, owe me anything, obviously, if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on you don’t have to, but I’m listening, alright? You can talk to me.” 

“I can’t,” Connor says. He hates how small his voice sounds. 

“You _can,”_ Jackson insists. “I want to hear anything you have to say.” 

Connor is really, _really_ crying again, shit. He shakes his head, wiping away the ridiculous tears running down his face and looking out the window so he can hide his face from Jackson. The sun has nearly disappeared. 

“Okay. I’ll try and explain, I guess I sort of owe you a reason for having a panic attack in your car?” 

“Connor, I don’t m-”

“Just let me get through this, please,” he says, turning back to Jackson. “I don’t know how much I can get out.” Jackson closes his mouth. Connor sucks in a harsh breath. “So like, I’m in this stupid gym class right now because like, I couldn’t fulfill the PE requirement my freshman year because I. I.” Fuck. “There was a medical emergency.” Jackson _already_ looks concerned, god, how the hell is Connor going to say any of this. Facing the window instead of the boy next to him seems like an infinitely better option, so he does it, leans his forehead against the cool glass and closes his eyes. “Anyway, I thought it would be fine and we would all just agree to forget about it, but then this year the guidance counselor tells me if I don’t take gym I can’t graduate. Fucking _gym,_ like, seriously, I’m in AP classes but the problem is if I can throw a basketball or whatever.”

“That fucking sucks,” Jackson agrees.

“Yeah, totally, and then the cherry on top is they didn’t want to make me ‘uncomfortable’ in the freshman year PE class since I’m a senior now, but that means they stuck me in _jock_ gym which is a fucking fate worse than death, honestly, and-”

“Jock gym?” Jackson sounds almost amused and Connor suddenly remembers who he’s talking to.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being a jock or whatever!” he adds, and Jackson laughs. 

“No worries.”

“But like, my point is I’m stuck in this class, this like _advanced_ gym class for all the student athlete kids who actually _want_ to be there, they all volunteered to be here and they’re all on the wrestling team and the football team and shit and it’s fucking terrible, and they all know all this sports shit and I don’t even know how to like, I don’t know, throw a ball.”

“Your dad never played catch with you when you were a kid?”

“Wasn’t my thing,” Connor grits out. It’s not Jackson’s fault that he doesn't know why that’s the absolute last thing Connor wants to think about. “So like. All the guys in this class suck and they all just. They all fucking hate me,” Connor says, not quite sure why he laughs when he says it. Maybe it’s to make it easier for Jackson to hear. 

“I have a hard time believing anyone could hate you,” Jackson protests, but Connor shakes his head, sitting up again. 

“No, no they really do, I promise.” They’re not the only ones. “God I’m really drawing this out and telling you way more detail than necessary, the point is one of them broke my nose a couple weeks ago and that’s why I wasn’t in class,” he finishes lamely. He cracks an eye open and peaks at Jackson, who looks stricken. “Ta-da.”

“I’m so sorry that happened,” Jackson says softly. 

“It’s fine, it’s over, so,” Connor says weakly. 

“You deserve so much better than that, I hope you know that.” It’s nice to hear. He’s working on believing it. Connor can feel Jackson’s eyes on him, feels his face heat up. 

“You can uh, you can keep driving, I’m not going to freak out again.”

“It’s totally fine, it’s not your fault,” Jackson says, but he starts the car up and pulls back onto the road. 

“Sorry,” Connor says. “That was really over the top.”

“It wasn’t a problem, I’m just sorry you’re not feeling great. And that people suck. And that you have to take gym class. That’s so dumb.”

“Says you, Mr. Hockey.” Even after he’s spoiled everything between them, Connor can’t resist teasing him. 

Jackson laughs, but adds, “I’ve been shoved around in plenty of locker rooms, I know the drill.” 

Oh fuck, _of course._

He glances at Connor, then says, “hey, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, you’re the one we’re talking about here.” Connor’s heart can’t handle this boy at all, he wants to get home and forget this ride ever happened and maybe just fucking _die-_

He’s not allowed to think shit like that anymore. His therapist and his mom both said so. He reframes it. He wants to go home and flop down on his bed and sleep for days. There. He’s a grown up now or something. 

“Why don’t we just say neither of us deserved any of this and call it good?” Connor offers, meeting him halfway because he can’t _not_ fret over Jackson. 

“Sure, I’ll accept that.” 

The silence is slightly more awkward for the rest of the trip, but luckily they weren't too far from Connor’s house anyway, so they arrive shortly after the incident. 

Jackson cuts the ignition, and Connor goes to open the car door, but Jackson grabs his wrist to halt him. 

“Wait.”

Connor freezes, turning to face Jackson head on, and it’s too much, he wasn’t ready, he thinks just looking into Jackson’s eyes has burned him even though the sun is down. 

“I just...you can talk to me, okay? When shit gets bad like that, if it gets bad again, you can always call me, or text me, show up at my house, I don’t care what, just like-” he cuts off sharply, and Connor realizes belatedly that Jackson is getting choked up. “You’re not alone. I’m always here for you Connor.” 

Connor’s feeling a little weepy himself. “Thank you.” 

“Of course. And I mean it. I really do. Any time. You’re never a bother.” 

_I love you_ Connor thinks, but he just offers Jackson a smile and thanks him again, turning and going into the house before he can make a fool of himself yet again. 

“How was class, honey?” his mom asks once he walks through the door. He pauses in the entryway, hoping he looks less like a person who just sobbed and threw up and sobbed some more on the way home than he feels. 

“It was pretty good, actually.”

“I’m glad,” she says, coming into the front hall and smiling. “I went a little nuts while you were gone - there’s blondies on the counter.” 

“Cool.” He slips out of his shoes and heads off to his room, stopping by the kitchen for a bite, because in general he’s suspicious of his mom’s weird cooking, but he trusts her baked goods. He throws his bag down in the corner of his room and sinks back onto his bed, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He’s been back at school for a week now, and there have definitely been some dumb whispers behind his back, a few too many giggles behind his back or people staring at him in the hall, but frankly it’s nothing new. And this with Jackson had really _really_ sucked, but he’d survived. And Jackson hadn’t run away. 

He finishes the blondie, then closes his eyes, and thinks maybe he’ll just fall asleep like this, right now. Maybe it's just the post-panic attack exhaustion talking, but for the first time in awhile, Connor feels calm. At peace. 

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> -Connor gets harassed by a guy in the locker room who makes some vaguely homophobic insinuations  
> -said guy punches Connor and fractures his nose, Connor snaps and punches back, several times, there's a few references to there being a lot of blood, the gym teacher does nothing to help o defend Connor  
> -a few weeks later Connor is reminded of the incident, which triggers a panic attack. He throws up and cries for a bit, is ultimately okay and has someone with him who takes care of him
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading! Find me on tumblr at mlbevan.tumblr.com and look out for more DEH fic very soon! I have two more written and two others in the works.


End file.
